Can anyone explain this quirk?

[Scout]

I've noticed something odd, and it's happened twice:

I have workers building railroad, and along comes an enemy unit which captures them. As the enemy continues his turn, I see no moves involving my lost workers. As other civs take their turns, the screen is still on this spot, and I see the enemy unit on the map with the little white bars indicating the captured workers still in that location. However, when my turn comes, the enemy unit is the only unit on that tile. I kill that unit, but do not recover any worker units. Not only that, but I'm 99% sure that I have sent my units to check every possible tile these workers could have reached, if they had moved.

Is there a special rule involving the workers lost by the human player? Do these units revert to the AI capital? (Certainly this does not happen to the workers captured by the human player from AI civs.)

 

[Protaxis]

Perhaps he killed them.

Also, was the railroad in your territory, neutral territory, or (for some reason) in enemy territory? Unless it was in your own territory, he could have sent them on down the line.

My guess is that he just killed them, though.

 

[jc011]

hmmm...That's odd, they couldn't have disbanded them...I have never seen this happen though...I was always been able to recover my stolen workers.

 

[jc011]

Originally posted by Protaxis


My guess is that he just killed them, though.

How do you kill workers??

 

[Protaxis]

Disband them, kill them. Whatever.

Why do you say they couldn't have disbanded them? When you capture a worker you can control them on the very same turn you capture them on. Happens to me all the time. Workers building a road, irrigating, mining, or what have you, enemy comes along and captures them, then sends them away. Only, instead of sending them away they could simply disband/kill them.

 

[PanaGo]

Yeap, the computer usually disbands all workers they capture...And that makes me SOOO mad!

 

[Scout]

Disbanding makes sense.

The AI does not ALWAYS disband workers, though. You can see the many captured workers under the military screen.

No way they got away on the railroad -- the enemy cannot use my railroad.

 

[Sam_Catchem]

I have noticed this more lately. I always figure I can recapture them..but no..they are gone. Bummer. The AI must disband them alot.

 

[jc011]

I said they couldn't have disbanded them because Scout said that during the AI's turn, he could still see the bars under the health meter, and until his turn, it was gone...That's why.....

 

[stravaig]

I think this happened to me, too.
I'm pretty darn sure that the AI disbanded the worker in question, though.
Perhaps it's just a case of the game not bothering to update the graphics between player turns? IE, the unit is flagged as disbanded, but the game is too lazy to actually graphically remove it until the players turn starts again... Not that that makes sense, but the evidence seems to indicate it.
In my case, the worker was captured on a small island, was only moved one square, and then wasn't there on my turn...

- Stravaig

 

[Cyrai]

I'm just thinking that maybe the computer disbanded them as the very last thing it did before your turn. But mainly, I'm posting to ask stravaig who is an alien autopsy, and why?

 

[jc011]

yeah, the graphics are probably too slow...when moving units out of a stack, the bar remains the same, then after the unit moves, a bar pops out.